Interesting finding. Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/27/circumcision-ruling-germany-muslim-jewish?newsfeed=true
Some details:
Any thoughts?
I seem to remember there may have been threads in the past about this as I specifically remember melon contributing his thoughts so if it's appropriate to merge, feel free.
Some details:
A judge at a Cologne court said that the circumcision of minors went against a child's interests because it led to a physical alteration of the body, and because people other than the child were determining its religious affiliation.
Religious leaders said the court had stepped into a minefield with its decision, which undermined their religious authority and contravened Germany's constitution.
Ali Demir, chairman of the Religious Community of Islam in Germany, said: "I find the ruling adversarial to the cause of integration and discriminatory against all the parties concerned."
Dieter Graumann, president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, called it "an egregious and insensitive measure" which amounted to "an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in religious communities' right of determination".
...
The court weighed up three articles from the basic law: the rights of parents, the freedom of religious practice and the right of the child to physical integrity, before coming to the conclusion that the procedure was not in the interests of the child.
It rejected the defence that circumcision is considered hygienic in many cultures, one of the main reasons it is carried out in the US, Britain and in Germany.
After much deliberation, it concluded that a circumcision, "even when done properly by a doctor with the permission of the parents, should be considered as bodily harm if it is carried out on a boy unable to give his own consent".
It ruled the child's body would be "permanently and irreparably changed", and that this alteration went "against the interests of a child to decide for himself later on to what religion he wishes to belong".
Any thoughts?
I seem to remember there may have been threads in the past about this as I specifically remember melon contributing his thoughts so if it's appropriate to merge, feel free.